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Three Ways to Think About Athens and Jerusalem

The expression “Athens and Jerusalem” is a familiar one in Western cultural history. It denotes two very different cultures: one a culture of reason and the other a culture of faith. So different were they that they became the subject of a raging debate in the early Christian centuries. As a matter of historical fact, […]

The Common Patrimony of All Mankind

“I am giving teachers a choice,” wrote the young Emperor Julian the Apostate in the summer of A.D. 362, not yet a full year into his reign. If they think the ancient writers were wise . . . then let them be the first to rival those authors’ piety toward the ancient gods. Or, if […]

The Contemplative Reader

The contemplative reader

How we approach a book can parallel the way we approach life itself. We can spend our time merely in pursuit of pleasure or we can strive toward a higher goal—the pursuit of what John Henry Newman calls the “philosophical habit of mind.” We would never dismiss the pleasure that reading can bring, but we […]

What Should We Lose by Our Ignorance?

Imagine for a moment that we had never heard the names of Greece and Rome. What should we lose by our ignorance? Those of us who read poetry would find much that was unintelligible in English authors, in all English poets, I think, without exception, from Chaucer to Rupert Brooke. We should not know in […]

Letter From The Editor: What Hath Athens to Do With Jerusalem? Plenty

Jerusalem

The expression “classical education” has been worked over pretty well in the last ten or twenty years. It’s hard to blame people for thinking it’s just a buzzword. Compounding the problem is the blizzard of seemingly different definitions of the term. When you want to define something, the best way to do this is often […]

The Language of Mathematics

The Language of Mathematics on a chalkboard

We are not a STEM school because we don’t treat science, technology, engineering, and mathematics equally—or even close to equally. It would be more accurate to say we are a math and science school, in that order. Our goal is not to graduate trained engineers, programmers , or technologists. Our job, as a K-12 school, […]

Why Math Matters

why math matters

Thanks to a misunderstood statement made by Saint Augustine in De Genesi ad Litteram, which condemned, not mathematics as we define it today, but rather astrology (the popular application of math in his day), many early Christians were strongly opposed to the study of mathematics. But Augustine, in fact, had the highest view of mathematics. […]

Math, Music, & Memory

Some children struggle with math. Proposed solutions abound, such as limiting struggling students’ math adventures to cooking, measuring, calculating money, and other “real-life” pursuits. But if we assume such a pragmatic approach, what do our children miss? Is there more to math than “useful” application? In a classical education we view arithmetic and mathematics as […]

Where Mathematics, Science, and Art Converge

Math Science Art

The fine arts are tied into every facet of the human experience. Among these interconnected facets mathematics and science are prime, even when their links to art are not immediately apparent. Discovering and enjoying these connections can empower teachers to place the arts deeper into the core of teaching and learning. No matter the historical […]

Raising Human Beings in a STEM World

Several years ago, I was asked by a lady who was starting a classical school if I would come give a speech to an education group in her community. I had planned my usual talk in which I discuss the advantages of a  classical Christian education, but on the way there found out that this […]

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